On Tuesday, March 5, Son Volt releases its seventh album Honky Tonk (2013). The country Bakersfield Sound influences the album, and lead singer Jay Farrar described why the band chose the album’s title: “Honky tonk music is about heartache, heartbreak, the road.” For those like me who have been following Farrar and Son Volt since the band spun off from Uncle Tupelo, the new album captures what was great about the band from the very beginning, even though Farrar’s current version of Son Volt has different band members than when they started. Just listen to the fiddle on the opening track, “Hearts and Minds”:
Here is Son Volt’s teaser video for the appropriately entitled “Bakersfield” from the album:
American Songwriter magazine is streaming the album for a limited time, so hop to their website to hear the rest of the tracks. Farrar also has a new memoir Falling Cars and Junkyard Dogs coming out this month about his career, including the breakup of Uncle Tupelo that led Jeff Tweedy to create Wilco. After listening through the tracks, I am excited about the new release. With new and upcoming releases from Son Volt, The Mavericks, Steve Earle, and others, it is already looking like a good year for Americana music.
What is your favorite Son Volt album? Leave your two cents in the comments.
This month is the anniversary of Uncle Tupelo’s album March 16-20, 1992, which for some strange reason is the only album in my collection where I remember the exact date it was made. The album, which was produced by R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, was recorded on the dates in the title, featuring both original songs and traditional songs.
This third album from Uncle Tupelo reflected the band’s frustrations with its record label, so the band decided to record music they wanted to record without regard for popular tastes. Below is Uncle Tupelo performing one of the traditional songs on the album, “Moonshiner” in Columbia, Missouri on November 13, 1992.
The CD also featured the Louvin Brothers classic, “Atomic Power.” Here is Uncle Tupelo performing the song on April 30, 1994 in St. Louis, Missouri at their second-to-last show together.
The first song on the album, “Grindstone,” is one of my favorites of the CD. I could not find a live Uncle Tupelo performance of the song. But after Uncle Tupelo broke up, Jay Farrar, who wrote “Grindstone,” performed it with his new band, Son Volt in Minneapolis on October 16, 1995. Check it out below.
Uncle Tupelo was at the forefront of the alt-country/Americana music scene in the 1990s. And the title of their first album, named after a Carter Family song, gave the name to the leading magazine of the genre, No Depression. But after March 16-20, 1992, the band released only one more CD, Anodyne (1993).
After the band’s final album, Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy dissolved the band in 1994 to go on to create more music with new bands, including fantastic work with Son Volt and Wilco, respectively.
But those five days in March on this date all those years ago, they created one of the albums that defined their permanent place in music history.
What is your favorite Uncle Tupelo song? Leave your two cents in the comments.
